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Renowned Lawyer and feminist Lawyer Mary Ohenewaa Afful has advised women who have been abandoned/ or neglected by their husbands who have gone ahead to remarry other women, to file for divorce in a court of competent jurisdiction.

She advised them to take legal action to claim the reliefs that have been provided for by the law of Ghana, i.e. Matrimonial Causes Act 1971 (Act 367). She said this at the Koforidua Lorry Station when she met the Market Women and the Lorry Drivers during her field advocacy tour.

According to Lawyer Ohenewaa a lot of women who have been abandoned by their husbands did not know that they could go to court even on their own to claim for compensation in the form of lump sum and other ancillary reliefs such as Accommodation, monthly maintenance, custody of children and any further orders granted for by the courts when marriages are dissolved.

Ms. Afful laments "My deepest worry is that men who commit bigamy should be prosecuted by the Police when women bring such cases to the Police. In this case the law does not favour women at all since men can go ahead and marry other women but women cannot unless they get the final dissolution of their marriages in court under ordinance marriages.

These abandoned women would have to spend money and file the divorce petition, pay lawyers etc. All these are extra burden on women who have already been neglected by their husbands coupled with the fact that their children too must at all means be fed, clothed and taken to school by these abandoned women. Laws on women and children's rights should be looked at critically by the institutions mandated by law to ensure protection of these affected women and their children. I wonder if the Gender and Social Protection Ministry is aware of these worrying issues".

During the koforidua event it was evident that women who have been left alone and their husbands who have gone to marry other women must seek divorce and stop being left there like...as suggested by the market women themselves as boola (garbage), shoe doormats, animals or monkeys to go to court and have their divorce done so they can be free and remarry, get maintenance orders from the court and compensation as well as suitable accommodation.

It will interest you to know that Lawyer Mary Ohenewaa is so passionate about women issues and as part of her field advocacy tour in Schools, Churches, Market and Lorry Stations, Women Groupings in Corporate Institutions. She has thus selected three detailed topics on the major situational issues affecting and confronting women and how the law seeks to help these affected persons. Relevant topics are: The Current Legal Position on Marriages and Divorce in relation to Property Settlements in Ghana; Domestic and Sexual Violence including Rape, Sodomy, Defilement and Sexual Harassment; and Testate and Intestate Succession, the need to make a VALID Will.

Her street advocacy tour started in the Eastern Regional Capital Koforidua with a very successful talk with the market women and Lorry Drivers. She is set to storm Nkawkaw also in the Eastern region this June, Kumasi in July, Takoradi in August, Volta Regional Capital Ho in September, and stopover in Accra in October.

She expected to be in London in November, December 2016 and January 2017 in London.

Watch her YouTube video of the Koforidua event and other videos.